Kevin Warnock

Pan with fruits and vegetables. Photo by Michael Korcuska via Flickr, used with Creative Commons commercial use license

I love to cook. I love to eat. I love technology. I love photography. My camera shoots high quality video. I like visitors to my blog.

Given the above, I’m going to start an online cooking show. I have been talking about this for years now, but this year I’m going to take action and get started.

I have access to a dedicated studio just for this project, and it’s all new and sparkling clean. It’s not someones’ kitchen – it’s dedicated to this cooking show and has in fact never been used for cooking, as that would put wear and tear on the appliances and cabinets and decor, and shorten the time everything looks brand new. It’s not quite finished yet, but soon will be. Light fixtures with properly color balanced bulbs for professional results have been acquired, and test shoots have been completed. The space looks amazing on video.

I’m going to use my Canon 5D Mark II camera to shoot the video. This is an astonishingly good video camera, as you can see from the video I’ve already posted to this blog. I will edit the video myself in Apple’s iMovie software.

I’m ordering a dedicated wok burner, since I plan to start the episodes with dishes that are cooked in a wok.

I have in mind that I’ll take the viewer shopping with me to Rainbow Grocery coop, where I do my own grocery shopping. This is the best grocery store I know of, and it’s a model for how I think the world’s grocery stores should be run. One of the best things about it is the stunning variety of offerings, and the large bulk goods section. This section contains some 800 items. I take a dozen Ball brand glass caning jars with me shopping and fill the jars directly from the bulk bins. As a result, I throw out very little in the way of packaging each week since I reuse my glass jars indefinitely. I am paid a nickel for each jar I reuse, which is a powerful incentive to avoid wasting packaging. I would increase the incentive to 25 cents for better compliance, as it’s currently quite low from what I observe in line at the checkout stand.

I want my cooking show to teach people how to cook. But I also want to introduce people to different, more efficient ways to organize commerce so that these ideas can be copied and spread.

I’ve never taken a cooking class, so I technically don’t know if what I think I know is ‘correct.’ But what I cook tastes good, and is different from Panda Express and most Asian restaurants. I like to think it’s as rewarding as what you would buy in a modest but not cheap Asian restaurant. I think that’s pretty good given I’ve only been at this a few years and haven’t taken any classes. I hope to get a discussion forum going so that I can learn from my more educated viewers that might be so kind as to correct my mistakes.

Soup, picture by Flickr user avlxyz. Used by Creative Commons commercial license granted via Flickr.

I also plan to show viewers my garden and aquaponics system I’m setting up now. I will cook from the garden as soon as possible.

I hope to develop a speaking style that permits me to inject social commentary into the lessons, in a way that’s not overbearing or that comes across as lecturing. I really want to impress on my viewers the importance of not eating out much, both for biological health and financial health reasons.

I passionately believe that cooking should again be taught in middle school and high school. Eating is universal, so everyone should be taught how to cook. It’s a tragedy I didn’t really learn to cook anything exciting until 2006.

If I get a good viewership on Vimeo and YouTube, I hope to take my show to public access television.

I recognize that the big celebrity chefs one sees on TV have devoted their lives to their craft. I have no plans to make this my life, so my show may well be awful compared to what the pros are doing. But I don’t think it will be awful. I think it will be approachable, educational and warm hearted, and that it will touch enough people to make it well worth my time. Look for the first episode by February, 2011.

Note that I went to school with an actual TV chef, but I haven’t seen him since I was 14. If he should ever stumble upon my show, I hope he is kind should he bump into me at a future high school reunion. I only know about his TV life because of Facebook, not because I’ve seen him on television…

The craziest thing about my plan is I don’t watch cooking shows and don’t own a functioning television. I didn’t even know who Emeril was until 2008.

I wonder if Julia Child boxed sets are available on DVD or Netflix on demand?

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